27 May
2024
27 May
'24
4:07 a.m.
On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 1:40 AM Rick Bensene via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Mike Katz wrote:
Could it? The 9830 could certainly use fixed text strings to prompt
for input and label output but I thought that to manipulate text in
memory you needed the 'String Variables' add-on ROM module.
I'm sorry but you are misinformed about the
HP-41C Calculator.
The HP-41 was the first calculator that had
Alpha-Numerics.
That is not true.
Technically, out of the box, it was the HP 9830. Yes, it wasn't a handheld
calculator, and it didn't run on batteries(it was big and quite heavy and required
standard 115V AC power), but it had an alpha-numeric display(and optionally a printer)
that could be programmatically written to, and the machine could accept alpha-numeric
input and process it as such.
The HP 9820 had an alphanumeric display, and could be programmed to generate alphanumeric
prompts on the display, but I don't believe (off the top of my head, I could be wrong)
it had the capability to accept and process alpha-numerics out of the box.
All the 98x0 machines, even the 9810, could be interfaced to a paper
tape punch and reader and could read/punch the tape one byte at a time
So : Type some text on a Model 33ASR and produce a paper tape of it.
Read that tape one character at a time into a 98x0, manipulate the
data, and punch the output
Feed the resulting paper tape back into the Model 33ASR and print it.
Is that handlng text on a calculator?
-tony